

Try to keep the string level at least a foot off of the ground. You can start here in order to lay out the perimeter of your deck by tying string between 1x2 wooden stakes set perpendicular to one another. Drop a plumb bob from the corners of your ledger board and set two stakes next to the house. You will need a cloth tape measure, some wooden stakes and a roll of twine. You will need an open space to work in, and you must move anything that will interfere with your lines or tapes in the site area.īatter Boards - This method is the most commonly used. Laying out footings is usually a two-person job. You must keep your lines or tapes level in order to avoid distorting the shape of the deck in a three dimensional space. Remember that the dimensions on your plan are drawn in two dimensions. It usually helps to have the ledger board installed to give you two fixed positions at the house to work off of. There are two principal methods for accurately laying out the footing locations based on your plans. It is very important to build the deck footings in the right locations. You can begin to answer your own question by using our footing and beam calculator. This will also increase the costs of construction. You may be able to reduce the number of footings if you use an engineered beam and increase the size of your footings. Decks with a lot of angles may also require additional footings. If you are planning on installing a hot tub or porch on top of your deck, you will usually need more footings and posts to support the additional loads.
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For most situations, you will want to place footings and posts less than 8' apart. The larger the beam and footing size, the fewer footings that are required.
